Arthur Johnston
Dr. Arthur Johnston (?1579-1641) was a Scottish poet, who wrote in Latin, and a physician. Life Overview Johnston was born near Aberdeen, and studied medicine at Padua, where he graduated. After living for about 20 years in France, he returned to England, became physician to Charles I, and was afterwards Rector of King's College, Aberdeen. He attained a European reputation as a writer of Latin poetry. Among his works are Musæ Aulicæ (1637), and a complete translation of the Psalms, and he edited Deliciæ Poetarum Scotorum, a collection of Latin poetry by Scottish authors.John William Cousin, "Johnson, Lionel," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: Dent / New York: Dutton, 1910, 214-215. Wikisource, Web, Jan. 31, 2018. Family, youth, education Johnston, 5th son of George Johnston of Johnston and Caskieben, was born in 1587 at Caskieben, Aberdeenshire. His mother was Christian (3rd daughter of William, 7th lord Forbes, died 1593). Of his 5 brothers, John, the eldest, was sheriff of Aberdeen in 1630. William, the youngest, was successively professor of humanity and philosophy at Sedan, and of mathematics in the Marischal College, Aberdeen.Gordon, 58. Arthur was educated at the burgh school of Kintore, Aberdeenshire, and probably at King's College, Old Aberdeen (Lauder). He may possibly have attended the Marischal College, Aberdeen (Mitchell). In 1608 he went abroad for a further course of medical study, visited Rome twice, and graduated M.D. at Padua in 1610. Career After extending his travels to the north of Europe, Johnston settled in France at Sedan, the seat of one of the 6 protestant universities of France, and the place of exile of Andrew Melville from 1611 till his death in 1622. With Melville and with Daniel Tilenus (the colleague, and afterwards the adversary, of Melville), Johnston lived in close friendship. His cultivation of Latin verse began at least as early as his residence in Padua. It is even possible that he was laureated for his verses at Paris in his 23rd year (1609-1610). But the statement is doubtful, and a later story, which makes him poet-laureate to Louis XIII from 1612 to 1632, is an absurd amplification of it. Some of his best epigrams were written while he was at Sedan. In 1619 he was practising in Paris as a physician, and in the course of a literary quarrel there with a countryman of his own, George Eglisham, M.D., published in that year his 1st volume of epigrammatic verse.Gordon, 59. Johnston's movements during the next 12 years are obscure. His poems allude to a lawsuit at Malines, in which he was successful. He was probably in London in 1625, when he printed an elegy on James I's death. In 1628 he published at Aberdeen 2 elegies, 1 addressed to Bishop Patrick Forbes (1564–1635) on his brother's death. In this publication he describes himself as one of the royal physicians, an honor which had been promised him both by James I and Charles I on the occurrence of a vacancy. An expression in a poem, implying that he had lived out of his native land for 24 years, has usually been taken as fixing 1632 as the year of his return to Scotland. He published a volume at Aberdeen in that year. But though he did not go to the continent till 1608, he may have left Scotland in 1604 and returned in 1628. His return appears to have been connected with a lawsuit in the court of session at Edinburgh. In 1633 he published in London specimens of Latin versification of poetical parts of scripture, dedicating his version of Solomon's song to CCharles I. When Charles visited Edinburgh for his coronation (18 June 1633), Johnston was introduced to Laud, to whom he had dedicated his version of the penitential psalms. Laud, who patronised Johnston in order to make him an effective rival in poetic fame to George Buchanan, encouraged him to complete his version of the psalter. He was twice married, to a Frenchwoman and then to a native of Brabant, and had 13 children. On 23 June 1637 Johnston was elected rector (not principal, as some of his biographers say) of King's College, Old Aberdeen. In this capacity he took an active part in reorganising the college, and in improving the tutorial machinery. The legality of the "new foundation" was keenly disputed during Johnston's year of office, but the rector was supported by a majority of the teaching staff, though the "mediciner" and the "canonist" stood out for the old arrangements. Meanwhile Johnston had completed in flowing elegiac verse the metrical Latin psalter, on which his reputation chiefly rests. Laud invited him to London. He went to Oxford on a visit to his daughter, who was wife of a clergyman residing there. After a few days' illness he died of diarrhœa at Oxford in 1641, and was there interred. A fine portrait of him, by George Jamesone v., is preserved at King's College, Old Aberdeen, where is also in the library a window with portraits of George Buchanan, Arthur Johnston, and Thomas Ruddiman, as representative Latinists of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The engravings by Vertue and (2) by Vandergucht are from a bust by Rysbrach, executed for William Benson (1682–1754).He was twice married, to a Frenchwoman and then to a native of Brabant, and had 13 children. Johnston increased the reputation of his countrymen for classical scholarship by publishing a collection of the choicest pieces by Scottish writers of Latin verse (including contributions of his own), on the model of the Deliciæ of the Latin poets of other nations, published at Frankfort between 1608 and 1619. Writing Johnston's poetical merits have perhaps been better recognised by English than by Scottish critics. The endeavors of his injudicious admirers, William Lauder (d. 1771?) and Benson, to prove him at all points the superior of Buchanan, overshot the mark, while the counter-criticisms of John Love (1695–1750) and Thomas Ruddiman led opinion to the other extreme. Dr. Johnson, who when at Aberdeen in 1773 searched 2 booksellers' shops in vain for a copy of Johnston's poems, thought he had improved on Buchanan in his complimentary epigrams. Hallam does justice to the excellence of his best paraphrases. In his satirical poems, especially when he deals with personal grievances, he overstrains his invective. 1 of the neatest of his epigrammatic pieces is a very happy condensation of the decalogue into 6 elegiac lines. The Deliciae, in 2 small thick volumes of 699 and 575 pages, was a patriotic effort in imitation of the various volumes (under a similar title) which had been popular on the Continent during the 2nd decade of the century. The volumes are dedicated by Johnston to John Scot of Scotstarvet]], at whose expense the collected works were published after Johnston's death. Selections from his own poems occupy pages 439-647 of the 1st volume, divided into 3 sections, Parerga, Epigrammata and Musae Aulicae He published a volume of epigrams at Aberdeen in 1632. In these pieces he shows himself at his best. His sacred poems, which had appeared in the Opera (1642), were reprinted by Lauder in his Poetarum Scotorum musae sacrae (1739).. He published: 1. ‘Consilium Collegii Medici Parisiensis de Mania G. Eglishemii,’ &c., Paris, 1619; reprinted same year (? with title ‘Hypermorus Medicaster’) (Bruce). 2. ‘Onopordus Furens,’ &c., Paris, 1620 (Bruce; a second satire on Eglisham). 3. ‘Elegia in Obitum Regis Jacobi,’ &c., London, 1625, 4to. 4. (?) ‘Elegia,’ &c. Aberdeen, 1628 (Bruce). 5. ‘Parerga,’ &c., Aberdeen, 1632, 12mo. 6. ‘Epigrammata,’ &c., Aberdeen, 1632, 12mo. 7. ‘Cantici Salomonis Paraphrasis Poetica,’ &c., London, 1633; reprinted 1709, 8vo, edited by Ruddiman. 8. ‘Musæ Querulæ de Regis in Scotiam Profectione,’ &c., London, 1633, 12mo (with English version, ‘The Muses Complaint,’ &c., by Sir Francis Kinaston v.). 9. ‘Musæ Aulicæ,’ &c., London, 1635, 12mo (with English version by Kinaston). 10. ‘Psalmorum Davidis Paraphrasis Poetica et Canticorum Evangelicorum,’ &c., Aberdeen, 1637, 12mo; London same year and 1652 and 1657; Amsterdam, 1706; London, 1740, 4to, and 1741, 8vo and 12mo (edited by Benson, with Latin notes on the plan of the Delphin classics), 1743, 4to. 11. ‘Deliciæ Poetarum Scotorum hujus Ævi,’ &c., Amsterdam, 1637, 12mo, 2 vols.Gordon, 60. His collected Opera were published at Middelburg in 1642, edited by William Spang, minister of the Scots church at Campvere, at the expense of Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet. His sacred poems were reissued in Lauder's Poetarum Scotorum Musæ Sacræ, &c., Edinburgh, 1759, 8vo, 2 volumes. Publications Poetry *''Poemata omnia''. Middelberg, Netherlands: 1642. *''Psalmorum Davidis paraphrasis poetica: Cum indice vocabulorum: The psalms of David according to the translation in the English Bible]. London: 1740; London: G. Innys, D. Browne & P. Vaillant, 1741. *''Apollos of the North: Selected poems of George Buchanan and Arthur Johnston (edited by Robert Crawford). Edinburgh: Polygon, 2006.Search results = Crawford + au:Arthur Johnston, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, July 4, 2015. Collected editions *''Opera'' (edited by William Spang). Middelberg, Netherlands: 1642. Edited *''Delitiae poetarum scotorum hujus aevi illustrium''. Amsterdam: Johannes Bleu, 1637. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Arthur Johnston, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, July 4, 2015. See also *List of British poets *Scottish poetry *Poets of other languages References * . Wikisource, Web, Jan. 31, 2018. * https://archive.org/stream/publications09scotgoog#page/n12/mode/2up Musa Latina Aberdonensis, Arthur Johnston, vol.2, (edited by sir William Duguid Geddes), Aberdeen, UK: New Spasding Club, 1845 *Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Boulliot, Biographie ardennaise ou Histoire des Ardennais qui se sont fait remarquer par leurs écrits, leurs actions, leurs vertus et leurs erreurs (2 volumes), Paris, 1830, book 2, 60-68. Notes External links ;About *Johnston, Arthur in the [[Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition|1911 Encyclopædia Britannica]] *Dr. Arthur Johnstone at Electric Scotland *Arthur Johnston in Lives of the Scottish Poets * Johnston, Arthur Category:1579 births Category:1641 deaths Category:People from Inverurie Category:Scottish poets Category:Rectors of the University of Aberdeen Category:17th-century Scottish medical doctors Category:Alumni of the University of Aberdeen Category:University of Padua alumni Category:Latin poets Category:17th-century poets Category:Poets